Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone (18 May 1939-23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. Known for his long and distinguished career, which focused on fighting against the Sicilian Mafia, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi clan in 1992.

Biography
Giovanni Falcone was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1939, and he was raised in the same neighborhood as Paolo Borsellino, a close friend who would also become an antimafia magistrate, and who would be assassinated just 57 days after Falcone. Falcone drifted away from his parents' middle-class conservative Catholicism towards communism, while Borsellino was religious and conservative. Falcone's father saw him as too independent-minded to serve in the military, so he instead prepared him for a law career. He became a lawyer in 1961 and a judge in 1964, and he began his career by fighting against the Sicilian Mafia's heroin network. Falcone revolutionized the criminal process by seizing bank records to follow the money trail created by heroin deals, and, despite a lack of resources, he succeeded in laying the groundwork for the Maxi Trial against the Mafia. 360 Mafiosi were convicted of serious crimes in a historic victory in the fight against the Mafia.

Despite his record of success and his high profile, Falcone was not made chief prosecutor of Palermo, and he was instead assigned to focus on wife beating and car theft. On 20 June 1989, the Mafia attempted to kill him in a bombing at a rented beach house in Addaura, but the sack of dynamite was found unexploded, and Falcone suspected that corrupt government officials were involved in the attempt. In 1991, he accepted a job in the Ministry of Justice in Rome, and he created district offices to fight the Mafia and a national office to fight organized crime. In January 1992, the government upheld the Maxi Trial convictions, a major blow to the Mafia. The Mafia realized that Falcone was even greater of a threat in Rome than he had been in Palermo, and Salvatore Riina ordered Falcone's death.

Assassination
Falcone made weekly visits to his home in Sicily, and Giovanni Brusca was assigned to kill him as he drove home on Highway A29. 881 lbs of explosives were placed in a culvert underneath the highway between the airport and Palermo, near the town of Capaci, and Brusca detonated the device by remote control on the night of 23 May 1992. Falcone, his wife, and three policemen were killed, and the blast was so strong that it was listed on local hurricane monitors. Just 57 days later, Falcone's close friend Borsellino was killed in another bombing. Falcone was hailed as a hero for his fight against the Mafia, and memorials were built in his honor.